Legal Dispute Between Papaya Gaming and Skillz Intensifies

Two providers of skill gaming platforms clashed in a legal battle that has now been ongoing for a couple of years. That’s the case for Papaya Gaming and Skillz, with the former being a mobile games platform that offers skill-based games, while the latter being a competitor within the same niche market.

Last year, Skillz filed a lawsuit against Papaya, alleging that it misled its customers by promoting player-versus-player games but offered player-versus-bot games. In August, Papaya responded to the lawsuit, dismissing the bot-use allegations by Skillz.

Papaya Files Claim Against Skillz

The aforementioned legal dispute is currently ongoing in New York’s Southern District Court. Responding to the allegations recently, Papaya accused Skillz of initiating a defamatory campaign by developing a “fabricated” website called 4FiarPlay.org, which allegedly helped spread false claims about competitors, such as the former.

The aforementioned website, Papaya claims, misled users into believing that Papaya rigs its games. That was Papaya’s response to the lawsuit by Skillz filed in New York. However, the former company took matters even further after recently filing a separate lawsuit in Virginia. Describing similar allegations, Papaya claimed that Skillz used the services of consultants from New York, as well as Chicago, who helped with the website that smeared its reputation via “phony customer testimonials,” as described by Casino.org.

Skillz Claims Competitors Use Bots, Deceive Players

The use of bots, or non-human players in skill-based games, was also subject to discussion during Skillz’s Q4 2024 earnings call in mid-March. At the time, Andrew Paradise, Skillz’s CEO, spoke about the platform’s proven fairness to players. The executive said that unlike Skillz, competitor brands and some of the biggest players in the skill-based games market do not uphold those values.

Paradise explained: “We believe international companies, including ABA Games, Papaya Gaming, and Voodoo Games use bots to deceive players in the United States and international markets into believing and competing against real human opponents when in fact they face predetermined gameplay or bots.”

Per the executive’s statement, such alleged manipulation enables competitor companies to alter “match results to their advantage,” resulting in losses in billions for American players. Paradise acknowledged the ongoing lawsuits, reaffirming Skillz’s intention to “pursue aggressive actions to safeguard” the fairness of the industry it pioneered.

As the lawsuits are ongoing, it is too soon to tell which company may prevail. The lack of a regulatory framework for skill-based games in particular, makes the legal battles even more difficult. It is not uncommon for such lawsuits to be resolved with an out-of-court settlement that may involve monetary compensation or other conditions that are usually not disclosed publicly.